Funky Fingers Mint Montauk

I LOVE LOVE this green! It is a rather bright minty green and is perfect for St. Patrick's Day looks and would also go well with a nice spring manicure or flower/outdoorsy scene.

Personally, I really like Funky Fingers nail polishes and have started collected them. I thought the bottles were really odd-shaped at first so didn't want to get involved, but over time I just grew to love their formula. Many colors dry matte which allow nice layering and look great under seche vite. They are made by the same company as Color Club nail polish, so some colors cross-over, but they are a good price at $3 each or 3/$5.

Ulta Pinata Yada Yada!!!

I have seen many swatches of Deborah Lippman Happy Birthday and thought that over white it looked really festive. I also realized that it was a little expensive for just glitter polish. I was looking around the Ulta.com website and saw something that looked pretty similar. It's Ulta Pinata Yada Yada and it was also on sale at the time for $2. $2?? Sure, I'd try it and this is what I got.

I put it over 2 coats of OPI Alpine Snow Matte and then one coat of Seche Vite to even it all out and bring on the shiny. I wore this manicure to a big Church dinner dance and I really felt like my nails were part of the party. It is sucha festive look! I do want to try it over black in the future sometime to see how that turns out, but for now over white is absolutely awesome!

Here is a close-up to see the hex shaped glitters in their different colors as well. The Deborah Lippman Happy Birthday glitters are square for the mini ones and hex for the larger. That is a difference, but only noticeable if you stare at it or do a closeup. Otherwise it's a great price for festivity in a bottle.

OPI Alpine Snow Matte Swatch

This is OPI Alpine Snow, part of their matte series of nail polishes. At first, I thought that I wouldn't like wearing white nailpolish. I thought it'd be like I painted white out on my nails. All by itself it does look a little different on my nails, especially since it is matte which means it does not dry with a shine.

The reason why I actually like this nail polish a lot is that it is opaque. It covers very well and white is a good background for festive manicures. You can put lighter colors over it to make them pop, or even use it under glitters for a new and different look.

I'm actually thinking about buying extras of this in case it is ever hard to find (HTF) so that I can continue enjoying it in the future!

China Glaze Crackle Haul and Swatches!

These are the ones I was able to get at Sally's. It was my first time visiting and have visited lots since. They didn't have the Black Mesh one, so I got 2 of the pink hoping to maybe trade it for black. The last one on the end there is actually a clearance of Ick-a-Body from the Halloween 2010 Collection.

This is the pink crackle called Broken Hearted. It is very bright and dries like a neon. It's probably one of my favorites, but that's because pink is my favorite color!

In this closeup shot, you can see how it cracks and that is is a pretty opaque shade. I included close-ups of each of the crackles to show how opaque they are and how well they crack.

This is the grey crackle called Cracked Concrete. It is a nice color and aptly named!

The cracks are nice and clear and the polish is also opaque.

This is the light blue crackle called Crushed Candy. Along with the pink one, this is my favorite in the collection. I really like this color and it's nice and bright!

Here is an up-close look. Looks sort of like a lake :)

Here is the purple crackle called Fault Line. Most people online complained that it did not crack as easily as the others. I think it depends on the thickness of the coat. The polish itself was VERY thick which makes it harder to apply.

This close-up shows all the cracks and that it isn't as bad as it's reputation would have one believe.

The white crackle is called Lightening Bolt. It ould be great in a Halloween or even Christmas look, but I don't think everyday looks would be easy to pull off with this one.

This close-up shows the opaqueness of this polish. It is over a light green color, and you can still see it coming through in the white. I think this would be a wonderful mummy, creature, or ghost look for Halloween.

Overall, I am pretty pleased with the collection. It, along with OPI Black Shatter started the bring-back of the crackle trend. I wish there were more colors, but as each line comes out with crackle polishes more colors ARE emerging. Can't wait to try others and come up with new ideas.

Nail Stamping AND Shatter!

I kept on the pink and decided to do some nail stamping and Shatter.

I used:

-Pink is Finger Paints Did You Ast-Her Out?

-On Accent Finger I painted Sinful Colors Pinky Glitter and then put OPI Black Shatter over it

-I used Funky Fingers Dark Knight to stamp in black the design from plate BM19

-I then used a dotting tool with the Pinky Glitter to put in the middle of all the circles

For my eyes I used the Coastal Scents 88 Original Palette

Swatch: Finger Paints Did You Ast-Her Out?

This is Finger Paints Did You Ast-Her Out. It is a really happy bright pink and I really liked the application. It went on smooth and dried quickly as well.

Bowling Manicure

A few months ago, we went bowling. I knew I wanted to do a special manicure for this and this is what I came up with for it. It is a French with thumb accent nails. I really liked it, so there are many pics here :)

And of course here is a close-up of my thumb because I really liked the idea I had. I didn't have the nail art brushes at the time, so had to draw with the regular brush in the nail polish and it is REALLY hard! So glad I ended up getting nail art brushes later on eBay.

I used

-Rimmel French kit for the base color and the white
-Funky Fingers Dark Knight for the black

-Sinful Colors red striper polish

-Don't remember what the brown is :(

Happy 4th of July!

My manicure for 4th of July is all red, white and blue. I'm actually really proud of this one. I decided to go all out and this is what it turned into.


Here is a close-up of my thumbs. I did that with nail art brushes and it turned out better than I had expected. The way I found to steady my hands easier was to rest the finger on the table and also rest my hand while moving the nail art brush. This helped tremendously!

The products that I used were:

-Blue is Sinful Colors Midnight Blue

-Red is Sinful Colors Striper polish

-On thumbs and ring fingers I used OPI Alpine Snow Matte

-On the pinky, pointer and middle fingers I used Revlon Powder Puff for the white

-Red crackle is Sally Hansen Crackle overcoat in Cherry Smash

-Blue crackle is Sally Hansen Crackle overcoat in Distressed Denim

-The holographic glitter polish on the ring fingers is Funky Fingers Baby Baby Baby from their recent Justin Bieber collection

-Topped off with a coat of Seche Vite

I must say that I like the Sally Hansen crackles. The color is bright and it is thinner than the China Glaze and OPI versions. It cracks nicely as well. I put a thin coat of each on the nail and those are the types of cracks I got.

Here is my eye of the day (EOTD). I used the Coastal Scents 88 pallette and a Revlon white color for the highlight. I even got compliments! :) I used blue eyeliner and put some Victoria's Secret glitter eyeliner in areas too (but you can't really see that in the photo).

More Patriotic Nails

I just did this design the other day. I wanted to try something different other than drawing a flag, but still maintaining the allusion.

I first painted all my nails with Revlon Powder Puff. It took about 3 coats to get it opaque enough because this is a rather sheer polish. It has some nice shimmer in it as well. I then took Sinful Colors Midnight Blue and stamped on the star background with B39 image plate. I followed that up with Art Deco silver glitter striper to even out the bottom of the french tips designs. I put on a layer of Seche Vite and was going to leave it at that, but knew it was really missing something. So, when my husband came home from work he suggested I add the red lines. I used Sinful Colors Be My Valentine red striper polish and applied it with a nail brush. This was my first attempt at using a nail art brush, hopefully I can get better at it!

Patriotic Nails!

Here is a nail design that I did a few months ago. It is red, white and blue very patriotic!

I have only been using the nail stamping plates since October 2010, so I'm not very good at it yet and that particular star background one is a little tricky!

I used red nail polish to paint my whole fingernail and then did the tips in white. I then took a Fauxnad nail plate in B39 and stamped the background on the tip in Sinful Colors Midnight Blue. Afterwards, I put a white stripe to clean up the edges a bit and then topped off with Seche Vite top coat.